"Richard Wagner is one of the more controversial opera composers," writes the Times of Oman, previewing the Royal Opera House Muscat's presentation of The Flying Dutchman, via the Latvian National Opera. It's refreshing to see a writer avoid the usual superlatives, even if one might quarrel with this or that formulation ("Many of his operas aren't divided into acts the most operas are, but are one long piece").... Laurie Anderson is curating two Synth Nights at the Kitchen; tonight's show features Annie Gosfield, whom the New Yorker's Russell Platt has immortally dubbed the "Carl Nielsen of Second Avenue." Tristan Perich occupies the space May 16-17... On May 14, the New York Philharmonic will perform Magnus Lindberg's Kraft at a German automotive complex; medici.tv will have a live broadcast. The conjunction is fitting, since Lindberg's score calls for discarded auto parts... Keep an eye and ear out for the Look & Listen Festival, May 17-19. The lineup of performers includes JACK, M6, Bridget Kibbey, Claire Chase, Nadia Sirota, James Austin Smith, and the Momenta Quartet.... I've updated my CD Picks.... I should have mentioned below that the Spring for Music concerts are, as in past years, being broadcast and archived on WQXR.... Having appeared in Spring for Music, the Buffalo Philharmonic will return home for June in Buffalo, which this year presents a particularly fascinating lineup of resident composers (Raphaël Cendo, among others) as well as a contemporary-oriented Performance Institute under the direction of Eric Huebner.... The Guardian's Tom Service has completed an epic, fifty-part survey of contemporary music with an essay on Stockhausen. All the posts are worth reading; the main page is here.
